Dance of the Happy Shades

Book excerpt: Fifteen stunning short stories from Nobel Prize–winning author Alice Munro, “a true master of the form” (Salman Rushdie). “How does one know when one is in the grip of art—of a major talent? . . . It is art that speaks from the pages of Alice Munro’s stories.”—The Wall Street Journal A young girl gets an unexpected glimpse into her father’s past when she realizes the sales call they’ve made one summer afternoon during the Great Depression is to his old sweetheart. A married woman, returning home after the death of her invalid mother, tries to release the sister who’d stayed behind as their mother’s caretaker. The audience at a children’s piano recital receives a surprising lesson in the power of art to transform when a not-quite-right student performs with unexpected musicality and a spirit of joy. In Dance of the Happy Shades, Alice Munro conjures ordinary lives with an extraordinary vision, displaying the remarkable talent for which she is now widely celebrated. Set on farms, by river marshes, in the lonely towns and new suburbs of western Ontario, these tales are luminous acts of attention to those vivid moments when revelation emerges from the layers of experience that lie behind even the most everyday events and lives.